The Halifax Building

The Halifax Building

This is a grade II listed office building of irregular diamond-shaped plan. It is a substantial multi-storey structure designed for document storage and office use, with four floors of primary accommodation above basement and sub-basement levels.

The building comprises lower and upper sub-basements containing a conserve-a-trieve automated document storage and retrieval machine. The basement houses car parking, a plant room, and a tunnel link to the adjacent computer building. The ground floor and mezzanine contain an entrance hall, training areas, a coffee shop, and a restaurant; the mezzanine originally housed a recreation suite, billiards room, table tennis room, and bar. The first floor contains meeting rooms and open plan office space with a bridge link to the computer building, originally housing the post room and office space. The second floor accommodates the main plant room and toilets. The third floor contains open plan general office space, with two later bridge links to the computer building. The fourth floor originally functioned as the executive floor, containing a directors' suite comprising a boardroom, lounge, dining room and two committee rooms, interlocking roof gardens, perimeter executive and solicitors' offices, and bedrooms; it now provides meeting rooms, informal seating, open plan office space with perimeter meeting rooms and individual offices. The floors are connected by four staircases within corner towers and a central core of lifts and staircase.

The main entrance is positioned in the north-west elevation fronting Trinity Road. The ground, mezzanine, and first floors are deeply recessed beneath overhanging upper floors supported at each end by quadrilateral stair towers, which rise through the upper floors and terminate in towers projecting above the fourth-floor roofline. The stair towers are faced in vertically laid York stone ashlar, each with a full-height stair window set slightly inset, fitted with brown anodized aluminium framing and brown glazing. The blind second floor of shuttered concrete is deeply chamfered, providing a base from which the third and fourth floors rise vertically on the site boundary line. These upper floors are clad in curtain walling with brown anodized aluminium frames, opaque brown glass spandrels, and brown glazing. A taller paired lift tower faced in ashlar is set back centrally on the roof. At ground-floor level, the open spaces beneath the overhang are landscaped with York stone paving. Approximately mid-point beneath the overhang stands a triangular sculpture with a low stone wall enclosing a series of angled rectangular metal pipes, which originally served as outlets for low-pressure carbon dioxide gas used for fire protection of the basement documents (now replaced by foam). The land falls towards the left-hand end of the elevation, which forms a sharp angle with the return elevation on Commercial Street. An angled corner flight of shallow steps beneath the overhang, with two smaller angled flights underneath the upper floors, leads towards the main entrance. The recessed lower floors have angled wall planes with similar curtain wall glazing. The main entrance comprises two glazed revolving doors flanked by a doorway on each side.

The three other elevations are similarly treated, with a quadrilateral corner stair tower at each end and identical upper floors. At ground-floor level, the north-east elevation on Commercial Street, the south-east elevation on St John's Lane, and part of the west elevation on St John's Place feature deeply chamfered plinths counterbalancing the second-floor overhang. The plinths are faced in vertically laid York stone ashlar. An entrance to the underground car park is built into the plinth at the mid-point of the St John's Lane elevation. Beneath the overhang at the southern corner, low walls of a triangular fountain pool remain, though the feature is now dry; other sunken reflecting pools have been infilled.

Internally, the main entrance opens into a double-height entrance hall leading towards the central lifts at the rear. The lifts are located in two facing lift towers joined by a floor at mezzanine level overlooking the entrance hall, with a glass balustrade and aluminium handrail. The lift towers are faced in square granite tiles, which replaced the original mosaic tiles. Beyond the lifts is an original staircase to the mezzanine level with a central flight dividing into two at a half-landing, the balustrade having glazed sides and aluminium handrails; the rear wall is panelled in blond wood veneer. The double-height coffee shop, now replacing the original self-service restaurant, remains on the west side, with an inner glazed wall separating it from the entrance hall dating from a 1997 BDP refitting, as does the reception desk. The area east of the entrance hall, initially used as a locker room, has been sub-divided into training rooms. The mezzanine floor now functions as a staff restaurant with a large seating area replacing the original recreation suite. The first and third floors retain grid-like acoustic ceilings; the circular supporting columns are no longer tiled with narrow vertical tiles, and the central lift towers are also retiled with granite tiles. The corner staircase towers retain original timber veneer panelling to the external walls, with glazed and timber doors opening onto the staircase wells. The staircases have terrazzo tiling with metal square-section balustrades and handrails. The conserve-a-trieve terminal originally on the open plan third floor has been removed. Working-area desks are modern, and the floors now have neutral covering, replacing the original orange carpet used throughout. The fourth floor retains the directors' suite of rooms on the west side of the central lift towers. These consist of octagonal rooms opening from an octagonal foyer with fully panelled wood veneer walls incorporating flush doors and wall-mounted veneered light fixtures, lit by an octagonal roof lantern. On the south side is a panelled lounge with circular ceiling lights, leading into the larger former directors' dining room with mainly plastered walls, replacing full-height windows that formerly overlooked a roof garden. It has an inset raised octagonal ceiling with a candelabra in the shape of a metal snowflake with radiating circular bulbs. On the north side is an anteroom opening into the former boardroom, now used as an informal seating area, with an inset raised circular ceiling and full-height windows overlooking a former roof garden. There are also two elongated octagonal committee rooms with inset raised ceilings, and male and female toilets retaining the original mosaic tiling. In the lower and upper basements the automated conserve-a-trieve machine for document storage and retrieval remains in daily operational use; the original control panel survives though no longer in use. The basements are fitted with strong-room security doors. Some of the columns retain the original vertical tiling.